The Untouchables (11 page)

“I knew it even when he was sick,” he whispered. For some reason, his voice was stuck at this level with me tonight. “He had so much fight. He used to tell me while in bed that once he was better, he was going to buy the damn hospital, just so they could stock it with better food. When I asked why he didn’t just suggest it to them, he said, ‘that’s too much talking and I want it done.’ He was seven. I took him and the boys fishing when he was thirteen. Neal caught five fish, Declan three, and I seven.”

“Liam didn’t catch anything? Are you sure?” I frowned, trying my best to remember those days, but he and I both knew that time for me was like the dark ages.

“He caught one. He was just getting over his trip from the hospital and still a bit weak. I was surprised he caught anything. I just wanted him to get fresh air and relax. We camped out by the lake, but when I woke up in the morning, Liam was gone…”

“Sedric!” I slapped his arm.

“Ouch. Damn it, woman!” he yelled, holding onto me tighter. “I found him, didn’t I? The little brat took the boat, went out on the water and fished until he caught eighteen fish. Kid was half frozen, his fingers were cut from the wires. I never wanted to kick his ass so much!”

I could see how now, years later, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the memory of it.

“He was so determined to out-do us all. He could have stopped at ten, but no, the damn kid had to double it. He was so proud of himself, even though he reeked to high heaven,” he added.

“That sounds like our Liam. He has to be number one, and everyone has to know it.” I laughed.

“Yeah.” He kissed my head. “It’s how I knew he was the one who was going to take over. Liam could barely stand to bow down to me. If it were Neal or Declan, I know he would have broken away or killed them. Never in my life was I more grateful to Neal than when he accepted it without question.”

“That’s because he’s like you and never wanted to be in charge. He hates working under pressure.” I would never admit it, but Neal’s fun craziness came from me.

“Your biggest success was finding Mel, you know that, right? Liam would not be half the man he is now if it weren’t for her,” I added.

“Both a good and bad thing. Good for the family and the company. The world may just hate me for it. Liam feeds off of her, and she him. They both like to out-do the other and it’s scary. Liam would have killed Shamus, but Melody pulled him back.”

I could see it in his eyes. Pride. They were finally growing.

“What are you going to do?” I asked for the third and final time.

He kissed me before sitting up. “I’m going to have a talk with my father.”

SEDRIC

There comes a time in every child’s life where they have to look their parents in the eye and say enough.

I always wondered when that time would come. Or how I could look my demon of a father in the eye, whilst standing with my head held high with no fear. We are all afraid of something or someone. Shamus had always been that person. Yet, as we walked through the back woods behind our home, I felt nothing…and nothing was a familiar feeling.

It was how I spent almost thirty years running the family. There were brief moments of relief; the moment I met Evelyn, the moment each of my children were born, and the moment Evelyn came back to me. But that nothingness was always there eating away at me.

“I didn’t seek company,” Shamus spoke in the darkness, as the wind blew the leaves above us.

“I didn’t seek your presence,” I said to him, moving to stand beside the tree. I hated coming this far back in our property, but I still made the trip once a year with Evelyn, just to see the tombstones that rested right under the tress. One for my mother and one for the daughter we never got to raise.

“I told you that boy of yours was going to cock-up everything I’ve built.”

I didn’t reply for a moment, enjoying the chill of the wind as we stood.

“Why are you back here, Shamus?”

“Because death is coming,” he replied. Turning to me, I noticed for the first time he held a gun in his hand. “You have no idea what you did when you arranged for their marriage. There are rules even we have to follow.”

“Any rules I broke was because you failed to teach,” I replied. “Are you truly going to kill me out here, in the woods, in front of my own mother and daughter?”

“Not you,” he said before turning the gun onto himself.

Before I could blink, the shot echoed through the night. His body fell onto the leaves, and I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not even a little bit.

Kneeling down, I stared at him. “You should have done that a long time go.”

Sighing, I pulled out my phone. Liam was going to be pissed.

NINE

“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”

—Herbert Hoover

LIAM

“I’m sorry, what the fuck did you just say?” Neal asked our father as he poured himself a drink.

“Your grandfather shot himself in the head with a nine millimeter while we were talking in the woods,” he repeated before downing the entire glass.

I opened my mouth, but for the first time in my life, I wasn't sure what the hell to say. How he could just stand there all calm and collected as if he’d just told us about the weather and not a man’s suicide. Melody, Declan, Neal and I sat there, and I allowed them a moment for the news to sink in.

“Shamus just shot himself?” Melody asked, eyeing him. “In the woods?”

“I feel as though you are implying something. Which is odd because you’ve always been so direct.” He glared at her.

Melody crossed her legs, folding her hands in her lap. “Fine, then let me be direct; did you kill Shamus?”

“No, but I planned on it. Just like the bastard to go and ruin that for me as well.” He frowned, still colder than ice.

This was the father that taught me everything I needed to know growing up.

“The Shamus I knew loved himself way too much to take his own life,” Declan added.

“We all fear something no matter how much we try to deny it,” he replied, moving to look out the window. “I can only guess it has something to do with Melody’s mother.”

“I do not have a mother,” Melody said quickly.

“Either way, Shamus’ last words were ‘You have no idea what you did when you arranged for their marriage. There are rules even we have to follow.’ So whoever that woman is, he was afraid enough to take his own life because of her.”

“None of this makes any fucking sense,” Neal groaned, rubbing his temple. “I mean I can’t be the only one totally confused.”

He wasn’t, and the fact that I was now as clueless as my brother pissed me off to no end.

“Enough is enough,” I snapped. “We’ve been behind this for far too long. I want answers. I want them
yesterday
. Who the hell is this woman? What does she want with our family?”

Melody sat up and turned to my father. “Shamus did two things when he got here: he insulted us, and he said you should have married Catherine Briar.”

“I’ve checked over that Briar family,” Declan replied. “They’re nothing but a small bunch of Irish thugs. They have a few dealings with ecstasy and other second rate drugs, but they can’t even hold a flame to us.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said, looking Melody in the eye.
Was she thinking what I was thinking?
“If Shamus wasted his breath on it, then it has to be important. We need to get to the Briars so that we can piece together whatever the hell is going on.”

“Only problem is, after you threw Natasha into the nut house, her family went into hiding. No one has seen them,” Neal said.

“Then do your fucking job and find them!” Melody and I yelled together.

Declan shook his head but rose along with Neal, heading to the door. It was only after they’d left that I turned to my father. “Were you really going to kill him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

He didn’t reply, he just looked out the window. “You both have a mystery to solve and I have a parent to bury.”

“You’re really going bury that bastard?”

“Rule forty-four,” he replied before walking out the door.

Melody looked to me, eyebrow raised and questioning me.

“Rule forty-four: Family is family, even when you wish they weren’t,” I explained.

She laughed as she moved beside me. “If this has anything to do with my family as well, I’m going to look into it.”

“Everyone in your family is dead.”

“Rule 171.” She smirked, and I stared at her in confusion.

“Care to share?”

She grinned, kissing my cheek. “Rule 171: even the men are family.”

I smiled. “You just made that up.”

“That doesn’t make it any less of a great rule.”

True.

“I have a bad feeling about this. All of this,” I told her.

“So do I.”

Just as I had suspected, something was coming out of Hell and straight towards us. And it was coming fast.

TEN

“I used to murder people for money, but these days it’s more of a survival technique.”

—
Jennifer Estep

FEDEL

Some people think you’d have to be a real messed up son of a bitch to live the life I do. I see them walking around with their heads held up high, talking on their cell phones, pretending to be good people. But the truth is, they’re not. Truly good people, which are very hard to find, don’t
think
they’re good people. They believe that they’re doing what anyone else would do. The truth is, ninety percent of us are hiding from the world and our true selves. We force ourselves to do the “right” thing because we’re afraid of the consequences of doing what we really want to do.

I used to be one of those people. I used to lie to myself too. I knew what my father—Gino the One-Eye—did for a living. I only saw him on holidays, and on my birthday, but I knew I didn’t want to be like him. Every time my mother washed the blood out of his shirts, I felt my disgust build. I didn’t want to be like him, I didn’t want his life, and I didn’t want to spend my time kissing people’s shoes.

And then he came back in a wheelchair and told me I was going to go work for the devil himself. Gino’s loyalty to Orlando knew no bounds, and I guess Orlando liked the old man. So when Gino lost his legs, Orlando allowed him a way out of the life and to prove his gratitude, and Gino gave me up; I would work in his place, that way no one would ever think he would become a rat. A man could rat on his boss, but a true man could never rat out his only son.

I hated him for it. I tried to run. I packed all my shit in a bag, jumped out the window and ran down the street, only to find Orlando’s daughter leaning against a beat up old Chevy.

“I told my dad you were going to run.” She said, as the wall of muscle I grew to know as Antonio opened the door for her and myself. The look in his eyes as he held the door open, and his visible gun, told me I didn’t have any choice in the matter.

Melody didn’t speak to me. Instead she sat back, flipping through an Irish-to-English dictionary. I tried getting them to talk, I called them every name in the book, but Melody’s only response was to take out a knife and drive its blade deep into the dashboard. That shut me up quick.

As we pulled up to their mansion, she laid down the law. “Your loyalty is to my father and me for the rest of your life,” she said. “You will kill for us, you will fight for us, and you will lie for us. In return, you will not only be a very wealthy man, but you will be much safer than you would be without us. Your father has pissed off a lot of people, all of whom would kill you just to get back at him. Run again, and Antonio will put a bullet in the back of your skull. Goodnight.” And with that, she got out of the car and walked into her house, leaving me completely stumped.

“How old is she?” I asked Antonio.

“Fourteen,” he said, as he shook his head, a thin smile playing on his lips. “The boss wanted to put her in high school, but was afraid she would eat the other students.” He laughed. “Come on, time to show the new dog his cage. Wouldn’t want to kill you so soon. She ain’t joking about the rules.”

No, she wasn’t. Over the years I spent there, I grew to understand my place. I grew more loyal to her. I wasn’t sure why. She just had a way of getting into your head and staying there. She worked ten times harder than the rest of us, and never asked for anything in return. She just worked…more than any girl her age should. You wanted to make her life easier. You wanted to do anything she needed. And by doing almost nothing but being cold, calculating and murderous, she had gained our loyalty. She was the reason I was making this call now.

“Gino,” I said into the phone.

“Fedel? Why…”

“I don’t have time, Pop. I have one question and I need you to answer it as honestly as possible.” I could feel her gaze on the back of my neck.

“I cannot lie,” he lied into the phone.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “What do you know about Aviela, Orlando’s ex-wife?”

“Aviela? Why are you asking? That woman has been dead for years,” he replied, lying to me again.

Damn it, Pop.

“Do you know anything?” I asked again.

“No son, I don’t.”

With that, I hung up.

I was going to have to do this the hard way.

“Well?” she asked, seated behind me as Antonio pulled up at the looney bin. She never spoke unless she had to.

I met her brown eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“He’s lying, ma’am. He knows something,” I told her honestly, and I watched her as she stared at me.

“Can I trust you to do what’s needed?” she asked.

“Yes.” Because I was loyal; the ranking of my life was Melody, Liam, God, then family. It was fucked up, but that was just part of life.

MELODY

Was my request of Fedel too much? Would he really do everything he needed to do to get the job done? Time would only tell, and right now, I had bigger fish to fry. As I walked up the stairs and into the stone structure—which looked like it belonged in a Stephen King novel—rats ran freely into building.